Halloween catch up

For the Frost family,  Halloween is a month long celebration full of costumes, traditions, friends, fun and CANDY!  This year was no different.  Here is a recap of how we celebrated the Halloween season.

Murder Mystery Dinner

To kick off the month,  we had a Murder Mystery date night.  We had three other couples join us for dinner and the murder mystery game.  We had great food, great company and I was able to get Colby to dress up without too much persuading.  All in all the evening was a success.

I broke out the "china" and goblets for the occassion.

Gathered around trying to figure out "whodunnit."

Christian's lederhousen and accent kept us all entertained.

The question is, would you let these two do surgery on you?

The Burstedt's pose for a picture.

We had Abbi take our picture at the end of the night and, other than cutting off a head or two, she did a decent job.


Haunted Houses

Possibly our longest standing Halloween tradition is decorating Haunted Houses.  We had some friends over for a soup dinner and decorating.  There were a lot of kids, a lot of sugar, and a little bit of crazy but we had a great time.

Years ago we learned that hot gluing the graham crackers together before adding frosting eliminates a lot of frustration.

Colby and the kids with the assembled haunted house.

This cracks me up!  Some of the kiddos with their "chocolate eyeballs."

Little O in his skeleton PJ's.

Like I said, lots of kids and lots of sugar.

This little cutie concentrating so hard to get the frosting just right.

Ammon got a little creative with the frosting!

It was near impossible to get a picture of all the kids and all the houses... but I tried.

Trunk or Treat

The Saturday before Halloween,  we attended the annual trunk or treat at the church.  The kids had so much fun "trunk or treating" with their friends and the weather was perfect... there was even a chill in the air!

Pictures with friends before the trunk or treat.

Caden, Carson and Ammon... the "big boys."

Tanner, Carter and Austin

Abbi and Brynlee... maybe taking some moves from Mr. Miyagi??

Me and my little ghouls.  Check out the cheeks on that lion!

Ammon and his buddy Mason were both ghosts.

These three look like trouble.

These little boys are getting antsy to get started.

Colby and our little man cub.

Trunk or treaters.  Tell me you're impressed with my trunk decorating...

Halloween Night

The one problem with celebrating Halloween the entire month of October is that I always feel a little burned out by Halloween night.  (it is the very end of the month).  It didn't help that this year it was 85 degrees and I had made our traditional Chili and breadsticks dinner.  It turns out that no one really wants to eat Chili when it's 85 outside.   We still had a great night.  We had hundreds of trick or treaters come to our house and the kids got a grundle of candy.  What a great way to end a fun month!

Four sweet kids ready to go get sweets.

Batman getting ready to trick or treat.

blessings

Owen Stewart Frost was given a name and a blessing on October 21st.  We felt very blessed that Grandma and Grandpa Frost were able to come to Texas for his baby blessing.  We also feel very blessed that Grandma was able to find a blessing outfit that fit our chubby little man when I discovered (at the last minute) that he had outgrown the outfit his two older brothers were blessed in.

Our handsome, chubby guy.

We were also very blessed to have my cousin Karin and Brian Brown and their boys drive down from Dallas for the blessing.

Friends and Cousins who attended the blessing.   Abbi was a little outnumbered by all the boys!

Three generations.

We were very grateful that the Campbell clan was in town for the weekend and they made time to come to Owen's blessing and help stand in the blessing circle.

Owen with Mom, Dad and Grandma and Grandpa Frost.

Love this chubby little baby boy.

Owen and Grandpa Frost.

Karin and Brian at lunch after the blessing.

After church,  we had a delicious lunch of BBQ pork sandwiches, baked beans, potato salad, spinach salad, pumpkin bread and mint chocolate brownies.  We're big believers that a celebration is only as good as the food you serve. 

Overall, we had a great day.... well, most of us did!

It's hard to be the little princess when it's not your special day!

A tale of three soccer players and a three month old baby boy

I love the Fall! Even in Texas when it is still 90 degrees, it starts to cool down at night and we get the occasional "jacket weather." One of my favorite things about the Fall is spending Saturday mornings at the soccer fields.  This season,  we have three little soccer players to cheer for.  Abbi has been asking for months (maybe even years) when she would be old enough to play soccer. Even though she missed the deadline to play this season by a couple of months,  I asked the soccer office if they would let her play and they said, "YES!"  (And because I asked in front of Abbi there was no turning back).  Every week we have six soccer practices and three soccer games.  This makes for a lot of dirty laundry and a perpetually dirty car, but it's a lot of fun.

Abbi's buddy Logan is on her soccer team and they are an absolute riot to watch.

Soccer buddies posing for a picture.

LOVE this little girl.

My three "big kids" after the games.

The other exciting thing that has been happening around here,  our little Owen if now three months old.  I can't tell you how much we love having this little one around.  Owen is such a ROUND,  happy baby.  He gets lots of attention from Mom and Dad and his older siblings.  Here are half a dozen pictures of his three month old "photo shoot"  (I had a hard time narrowing it down.)

Love his dimples and big, chubby cheeks.

We think he might have blue eyes.

He is constantly sucking on his hands and fingers.

Owen has a great pouty bottom lip.

Looking so grown up!

Two Months Old

My sweet baby boy is two months old.  I can honestly say that I have loved every minute of the last two months with him. I frequently think, "wow, what an amazing baby,"  and he is.  He sleeps through the night,  naps when I want/need him to nap, smiles and coos, is rarely fussy and likes to snuggle with me. Amazing.  On Owen's two month "birthday" I did a mini photo shoot with him.

I am not a professional photographer,  nor do I have any desire to be.  I do have a fancy pants camera that takes pretty decent pictures on "auto" and I have no desire to pay someone else a small fortune to take pictures for me. So I give it my best shot, take about 200 pictures to have 3 of them turn out and vow that someday I will take a photography class.  Someday when I'm not driving kids to soccer practices,  soccer games, tumbling classes,  dance classes, & cub scouts, teaching preschool, doing 12 loads of laundry a week and trying to fit in feedings every 2-3 hours for my hungry little growing baby.  It's definitley not the time or the season for photography classes, and I'm okay with that.

Here are the three that turned out:

I love this little chalkboard I picked up at Michaels for a couple of bucks.

Looks so much like his big brothers.

Owen is starting to hold his head up really well.

Just for fun,  here are some of the out takes.  I had a great three year old helper :)

Abbi helping Owen hold up his head.

Abbi giving Owen kisses.

This kid wants to suck on everything in sight.

See what I mean?

And Abbi rushes in to help.... again.

He looks a little bit like an alien in this one.

At two months Owen:

Weighs 13 lbs. 6 oz.

Wears size 1 diapers

Wears size 0 to 3 month clothes

sleeps 7-8 hours at night without waking

Still won't take a binkie

Smiles and Coos when we talk to him.

Likes the bath.

Does not like to be cold.